silver

Valid in Scrabble

Scrabble points
9
Words With Friends
11
Letters
6
Pronunciation
/ˈsɪl.və/
See all 3 pronunciations
/ˈsɪl.və/ · /ˈsɪl.vɚ/ · /ˈsɪlvɚ/

Definition of silver

21 senses · 4 parts of speech · etymology included

noun

  1. (uncountable)A lustrous, white, metallic element, atomic number 47, atomic weight 107.87, symbol Ag.
See all 21 definitions

noun

  1. (uncountable)A lustrous, white, metallic element, atomic number 47, atomic weight 107.87, symbol Ag.
  2. (collective, countable, uncountable)Coins made from silver or any similar white metal.
    “[…] maybe two or three twenties, a dozen tens, and twenty or thirty fins. The rest is all aces and silver.”
  3. (collective, countable, uncountable)Cutlery and other eating utensils, whether silver or made from some other white metal.
  4. (collective, countable, uncountable)Any items made from silver or any other white metal.
  5. (uncountable)A shiny gray color.
    “I'll need some mayonnaise and a silver tin of sardines, a banana.”
  6. (countable)a silver medal
  7. (countable, uncountable)Anything resembling silver; something shiny and white.
    “And next morning they found him dead, with his neck broken, in the bottom of the stone pit, with his beautiful clothes a little bloody, and foul and stained with the duckweed from the pond. But his face was a face of such happiness that, had you seen it, you would have understood indeed how that he had died happy, never knowing that cool and streaming silver for the duckweed in the pond.”

adj

  1. Made from silver.
    “He looked round the poor room, at the distempered walls, and the bad engravings in meretricious frames, the crinkly paper and wax flowers on the chiffonier; and he thought of a room like Father Bryan's, with panelling, with cut glass, with tulips in silver pots, such a room as he had hoped to have for his own.”
    “But Richmond[…]appeared to lose himself in his own reflections. Some pickled crab, which he had not touched, had been removed with a damson pie; and his sister saw, peeping around the massive silver epergne that almost obscured him from her view, that he had eaten no more than a spoonful of that either.”
  2. Made from another white metal.
  3. Having a color like silver: a shiny gray.
  4. Denoting the twenty-fifth anniversary, especially of a wedding.
    “Mostly, these have been relationships of 10 or less years. However, one respondent has celebrated her silver wedding anniversary.”
  5. Premium, but inferior to gold.
  6. Pertaining or relating to elderly persons.
  7. Having the clear, musical tone of silver; soft and clear in sound.
    “a silver-voiced young girl”

verb

  1. To acquire a silvery colour.
    “Presently all the eastern sky began to silver and shine, and objects before invisible in the west—chiefly the tall towers on Mount Zion—emerged as from a shadowy depth, [...]”
    “But when the moon rose and the breeze awakened, and the sedges stirred, and the cat's-paws raced across the moonlit ponds, and the far surf off Wonder Head intoned the hymn of the four winds, the trinity, earth and sky and water, became one thunderous symphony—a harmony of sound and colour silvered to a monochrome by the moon.”
  2. To cover with silver, or with a silvery metal.
    “to silver a pin; to silver a glass mirror plate with an amalgam of tin and mercury”
  3. To polish like silver; to impart a brightness to, like that of silver.
    “For here retir'd the ſinking billows ſleep, / And ſmiling calmneſs ſilver'd o'er the deep.”
  4. To make hoary, or white, like silver.
    “Remote from cities liv'd a Swain, / Unvex'd with all the cares of gain, / His head was ſilver'd o'er with age, / And long experience made him ſage; [...]”

name

  1. An English surname originating as an occupation for a silversmith or a rich man, or for someone having silvery gray hair or living by a silvery brook.
  2. A surname from German.
  3. A unisex given name from English from the metal, or transferred from the surname.
    “" - - - I'll level with you, Mr. Cummings." "Silver", he corrected. "Sounds like the Lone Ranger's horse," she said.”
    “"Silver here, my darling wife, insists on the services of a particular yacht upholsterer. - - - " From the way he said the woman's metal name Quayle thought it was changed from a stodgier "Alice" or "Bernice".”

Definitions from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA.

Etymology

Etymology tree substratebor.? Proto-Germanic *silubrą Proto-West Germanic *silubr Old English seolfor Middle English silver English silver Inherited from Middle English silver, selver, sulver, from Old English seolfor, from Proto-West Germanic…

See full etymology

Etymology tree substratebor.? Proto-Germanic *silubrą Proto-West Germanic *silubr Old English seolfor Middle English silver English silver Inherited from Middle English silver, selver, sulver, from Old English seolfor, from Proto-West Germanic *silubr, from Proto-Germanic *silubrą (“silver”), of uncertain origin. cognates and etymology discussion Cognate with Scots siller (“silver”), Saterland Frisian Säälwer (“silver”), West Frisian sulver (“silver”), Dutch zilver (“silver”), German Low German Silver, Sülver (“silver”), German Silber (“silver”), Swedish silver (“silver”), Icelandic silfur (“silver”). The Germanic word has parallels in Baltic and Slavic (Old Church Slavonic сьрєбро (sĭrebro), Lithuanian sidabras), Celtic (Celtiberian silaPur-), and outside Indo-European, in Basque zilar and Proto-Berber *a-ẓrəf, but the ultimate origin of the word is unknown. Adjective sense 4 (“denoting a twenty-fifth anniversary”) generalized from silver wedding, itself a calque of German Silberhochzeit.

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